There are many multi-player online games and virtual reality systems in today's society that allow large numbers of individual players to participate and play the same game, both as allies and as enemies. There are many popular games that have thousands of users all playing the same game together, sometimes in virtual worlds and utilizing virtual characters. These games can be very realistic from a game playing viewpoint, yet many have drawbacks that may take away from the realism of the game.
One of the many advantages to these games and a factor that draws many individuals to play these games is that several individual users and/or players can participate in the game at the same time. Moreover, another factor that draws many individuals to play online games is the ability to utilize a character object which can be an online representation of any character that they wish to display to other online gamers including, for example, an avatar which is a virtual representation of the player. An individual player may be represented by many different types of avatars and characters. The characteristics of an avatar may be chosen by the individual player and may be changed at will. Additionally, because some of these characters become synonymous with the individual player, many other individual players know only the created character of a particular individual.
Another enticing factor to many online gamers is the ability to socialize, network and play with other individuals that are also playing in the same virtual world. Typical users will have a microphone or headset which allows them to speak to other individuals that are also engaged in online game play. It is very typical for multiple players to know each other and for them to engage with other players. Online game participants can cooperate and/or compete with each other to achieve specific goals within the game. In many cases, cooperation between several players is essential in order for certain objectives to be achieved and competition between teams of players is not uncommon.
Existing online gaming voice control has a number of drawbacks. First, because the individual user is using a headset or other voice system, the information is digitally fed into the game whereby the voice patterns, pitch and volumes are simply projected to other players with no real effect in game play. Platforms that enable voice communication between the individual participants and players typically provide a chat channel that is independent of the audio channel providing sounds of a game. Thus, gaming platforms are typically unable to utilize the user voice communication as a form of user input. Additionally, because voice characteristics do not affect game play, no thought or strategy is given as to how communication is made during online game play. For example, when a player desires to communicate with another player, they simply speak into their headset to alert or communicate. If the player yells or whispers, there is no effect on game play. This results in a lack of realism among participants in a virtual environment controlling virtual character objects within some proximity of each other.
Therefore, a need still exists for analyzing and incorporating voice characteristic reaction and alteration during online game play. Additionally, a need exists for analyzing, filtering and processing voice criterion and allowing the game and/or software to react to voice fluctuations depending on speech analysis, volume, pitch and other speech characteristics and altering game play based on the speech analysis of each individual player.